I started a new job in January. BNG Officer – that’s biodiversity net gain for those not in the trade… It means getting in place the policies and procedures we need for North Yorkshire Council when new legal obligations come in later this year. Through the planning process, new developments will have to demonstrate a…
Limpets and Lignite at Long Nab
Long Nab is a promontory on the cliffs north of Scarborough. If you have visited Scarborough you may have seen a small white hut perched on the clifftop a couple of miles up the coast. The white wooden hut is the Long Nab Bird Observatory, a former coastal look out station from WWII (and even…
Ripples of the past
At Cloughton Wyke, a lesser-known rocky cove north of Scarborough I came across these marvellous ripple-marked sandstone slabs. They belong to a time over one hundred and seventy million years ago when a vast deltaic environment existed here in the Jurassic period. The beautiful surfaces of these slabs, fallen from the cliff capture a snapshot…
The Rotunda – a geological gem of a museum
The Rotunda – properly sub-titled ‘The William Smith Museum of Geology’ in Scarborough, was one of the first purpose-built museums in the country…. and one of the oldest. It opened in 1829 with the distinctive rotunda later added to with wings to either side increasing the gallery space. A photogenic building on the outside, it…
Leighton Moss adventure
Many years ago in my mid-teens I think, I spent a week as a volunteer warden for the RSPB at their Leighton Moss reserve in Lancashire. It has the largest reedbed in northern England, a habitat more usually associated with the fens of East Anglia. I will always have a soft spot for the place…
Bike, birds, bus, train
I’m back on the bicycle today – for a short ride, just half an hour to take me to the Coastliner bus. I’m travelling to Scarborough today for work. My first commute outing on the bike this spring. I’m still working from home in the main and commuting occasional days when I need to. Over…
Upstream tranquility
I took a walk upstream from Stamford Bridge on my day off from work. It is somewhere I don’t go as often as I ought, given that it’s a stone’s throw from home. There is a body of water on the eastern floodplain of the Derwent, just beyond the outer limits of the village. I…
Educate yourself on hedgerows
Do you use Twitter? Many of us do, though of course there are many flavours of social media platforms which suit people differently. I use Twitter (somewhat sporadically I confess, to my shame) as a source of news, information, knowledge-sharing and networking with a community of people who share interests in common with my own….
Hidden Haven
A fern-filled ravine sits on the coast between Filey and Hunmanby Gap. Hidden beneath a dense cover of hawthorn and blackthorn scrub it’s a shady gulley carved into the boulder clay. A small stream is flanked by Hart’s Tongue and Male Ferns, safe from salty sea breezes above the canopy. Primroses, still in leaf, patch…
Golden Givendale
Dawdling has never felt so indulgent. The cries of the benign but boisterous mob of youngsters echoed from the steep valley sides, as they charged distantly down-dale. An unexpected bonus of helping out at the Givendale scout camp last week was the stunning golden rays of evening sunshine, the beautiful wolds landscape, the long shadows, the…
A little bit of wild... 